Hybrid Event: How to Have Success and To Engage Audience?
The Covid 19-pandemic had adverse effects on the corporate world. B2B events, essential to growth, were difficult to organize. Consequently, the notion of “Hybrid event” is now very popular. This article has been specially tailored to give you tips to prepare a positive, dynamic, and original “Hybrid event”.
What is a Hybrid Event?
To plan and host a successful hybrid event, you need to understand in depth what it entails. This forum is one where you host a conference, tradeshow, workshop, or any form of event with both in-person and virtual attendees. The key aim is to provide each audience segment with an equally meaningful experience.
For example, if you hold a corporate conference, some can physically attend while the speakers give their presentations. The online attendees get to share the same experience through a live recording. To get a full-on experience, you can provide them with access to the sessions, recordings, speaker information, and keynotes available to those physically present.
To effectively engage your audience in a hybrid event, you need to:
Predetermine the goals and strategy of your forum
As cliché as it may seem, determining your objectives beforehand, is the most important phase in B2B event planning. It would help if you decided what you intend to achieve from the occasion. The following questions should help you set up key performance indicators (KPIs):
• What type of an event is it? (Conference, product launch, workshop, networking)
• What do you aim to achieve? (E.g., brand awareness)
• Who is your target audience?
• Why do you need a hybrid forum?
With this information at hand, you can excellently strategize.
Clearly outline your budget
Budgeting will help you to find strategies that enable you to bring the B2B event’s cost margins down. This type of forum can be costly, but having a large audience can offset the cost. You need to critically consider what you need each set of audiences to experience to allocate the budget.
You can find sponsors to fund your brand. Moreover, they often participate in the marketing process and, in general, ensure success. The goal is to ensure maximum return on investment (ROI).
Conduct extensive marketing
A fruitful outcome is where you can reach a wider audience, hence the need for this type of audience. To achieve this, you need to lay a strong marketing strategy. Social media has proven to be one of the greatest megaphones.
You need to:
1. Identify your target audience and what best appeals to them.
2. Create content that attracts them to your occasion.
3. Also, engage the audience during the session, such as through Twitter for maximum output.
4. Send personalized invites to your target audience.
5. Utilize software such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to identify prospects you can invite for a product launch, for instance. It would be best to give them the option to attend online or physically.
6. Include the session’s details in the target campaign.
Find a dependable venue and a platform for the event
To start, you could use our client friendly venue finder to find the right place for your event in Brussels.
We are a nonprofit association, so making use of our platform is for free.
Once you’ve found your venue, you will need an online platform. The site should be user-friendly and provide an immersive experience. The platform should support live-streaming of in-person sessions, live chats and video uploads. Your audience should be able to access your content and occasion via any device i.e. phones, tablets and laptops. Ensure it supports analytic management (such as registration and on-site check-in), and aftermath of the forum for future reference. Our venues can help you to find the right platform for your event.
Create both in-person and virtually engaging content and program
Optimizing the experience for both sides can be daunting. You can have checklists that ensure each type of attendee’s satisfaction, for starters. However, it is worth noting that attending a full virtual corporate forum can be overwhelming. For this reason, you need to have a specialized program and an mc specifically for the online audience.
In addition, you should engage your audience more through interactions and give them breaks. You can shorten some aspects for the online audience. Most importantly, ensure your speakers are set up for success with thorough practice and preparation.
Host a dry run of the hybrid session
This ensures you are entirely prepared. Therefore, you can prevent or tackle any problems in the forum, such as online registration, attendee logins, and sound system audibility. Main participants such as the speakers and tech team should be present during the test run. This will allow them to configure the equipment effectively, guaranteeing smooth sessions.
Have an analytic system/ software in place for lead generation
The event management software you use should give you analytical feedback. This will help you analyze even the audience outside of Brussels, in the case it is your venue.It should provide you with information such as attendance engagement, frequently visited sites in the virtual exhibit hall, and their interactions. This will help the presenters to adjust their presentations for effectiveness. You can also use this information to ensure success in the future.
Final Thought
The key tip to holding a successful hybrid conference or any corporate occasion is proper planning, and strategy that will guarantee each audience segment a splendid experience. However, providing the in-person attendees with the right space with all the significant qualities can be challenging. For this reason, Brussels Special Venues is specially dedicated to helping you find the best suited venue for the occasion; all varying aspects such as capacity and layout in consideration for your satisfaction. Simply look into the venue finder on the website, and log in to get access to your dream room of choice, just a click away.
